


Iron Stark

by lozzeh



Category: The Avengers (2012)
Genre: Arc Reactor, Gen, Suicide Attempt, Tony Stark Feels
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-09-27
Updated: 2012-09-27
Packaged: 2017-11-15 03:57:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 678
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/522882
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lozzeh/pseuds/lozzeh
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Would you lay down on the wire?"</p>
<p>After his heated argument with Steve, Tony thinks over what he said. He watches the sky change, as he wonders what would happen if things were different.</p>
<p>(Very short fic)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Iron Stark

The problem with needing something to continue existing, is that at some point you’ll just look at it, loathing it, and consider ignoring the fact that it helps you to live. You wonder what it would feel like, just to give up. This was a question that Tony Stark would often ask himself, rolling the blue glowing device in his hand, eyelashes lowered. He had felt what life would be like without it; felt the chest pains, the strokes. Earlier he had narrowly avoided dying, when Obadiah had stolen his ark reactor. Only Pepper has saved him, Pepper and her stupid nostalgia, and feelings. Maybe it would have been better if Pepper hadn’t of kept his old prototype.

Thinking about it, there were a lot of things that shouldn’t have happened. He shouldn’t have built that suit. He shouldn’t have used it, as if it were his toy. If that hadn’t happened, then there would be no Iron Man. The Avengers, if they even existed, would be better off without his screw ups. They’d be happier, a lot more would be alive. 

He could go back, a long while, and blame this on his father. His father, the working man, his father the genius. His father the bastard. Maybe it wasn’t so bad, how he treated him, maybe it was his childish mind, making things up, as if it were a game. Daddy made me drink such and such, Daddy screamed at me until I sobbed, Daddy threw a bottle at my head. All of these things Tony would take pleasure in telling his Mother. How often he had watched Maria’s face go from horrified to angry in three seconds, well, he wasn’t able to count. Maybe he should have just gotten over it. Whatever. Howard wasn’t the problem, the only problem in Tony’s life was Tony himself.

That was why he had created Iron Man. While he had been in that cave, he had already thought of another five ways to escape. He knew exactly how to get both him and Yinsen would have survived. If he had chosen another thing, another plan, Yinsen would be with him right now, a worker in his company. But Tony Stark didn’t want to escape, and the other plans were focused on Tony’s survival, selfishly. So Tony chose a way to get himself out of that cave, but as a different, better thing. An ideal. A hero. Iron Man.  


Why was he even up here, thinking about this? Maybe it was Steve, maybe it was because Steve could see Tony for exactly who he was, a selfish child, an anti-hero, even, at times, a villain. Maybe that was why Tony was sitting atop of Stark Tower, watching the ant-like forms of the people below. Tony Stark would not ‘lay down on the wire’, Tony Stark was not a hero. Maybe he should just get it over with. 

Tony lifted his hand, fingernails clinking against the glass and metal. How many mornings had he wanted to tear it out? How many drunken nights had he sobbed and begged himself to do it? Too many. He should just do it. Tony’s fingers tugged at the arc reactor, pulling it out of the chest cavity. A tinge of pain ran up his spine, but otherwise the pain was minimal, in comparison to the agony felt when he had it in.  


As Tony watched the light of the clouds change, and the agony increased moment by moment, until he could hardly breathe, his attention was drawn towards the beeping of his mobile phone. Slowly, he lifted his hand, answering the device. “Stark.”

“We need the Avengers in the base now. Loki is planning a full scale attack.” The nameless voice, a voice he would late learn belonged to a Carla Smith, Nick Fury’s secretary and a damn fine woman, saved him. The world didn’t need a Tony Stark, but it sure as hell needed an Iron Man. Tony placed the ark reactor in his chest, a slow, easy smile lifting his mouth. “Avengers Assemble.”


End file.
